Episode 138: Mickey Hart

Andy Kahn (0:09)

Hey there everybody, thanks for checking out another episode of The JamBase Podcast. I'm Andy Kahn, and JamBase is a partner of Osiris Media, podcast network for music. It is my absolute pleasure to share with you my interview with Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead & Dead & Co. I was thrilled to be able to speak to Mickey about his new Planet Drum album, In The Groove, which was released shortly after we spoke. We'll hear that interview in a moment. First, I wanna make sure to remind you, if you haven't yet, to listen to our surprise bonus episode that dropped on Tuesday. JamBase's Scott Bernstein spoke to keyboardist Richard James of the band Naver about the upcoming Into The Sun event JamBase is hosting at Soundcheck Studios in Pembroke, Massachusetts. Naver has plenty of exciting things in store for the three shows they'll be performing on September 9th, 10th and 11th. Into The Sun will also feature performances by Jennifer Hartswick, Nth Power, Club Delph, Natalie Cresman and Ian Fichini and Duochrome. Visit intothesun2022.com for complete details and to purchase tickets. We hope you can join us and go see live music. All right, now let's get to my interview with Mickey Hart. As I told Mickey, I've been a Deadhead almost as long as I can remember. I started listening to The Grateful Dead when I was 10 or 11 and saw my first show when I was 13 Over the past nearly 30 years, The Grateful Dead's music has been important to me in almost every facet of my life. To get to talk to Mickey Hart was an exciting and fulfilling experience that I'm so glad I get to share with you. We talked a lot about Planet Drum and the new album, In The Groove. Planet Drum is an international all-star percussion ensemble, currently made up of Mickey, Tabla master Zakir Hussein of India, conga legend Giovanni Hidalgo of Puerto Rico, and talking drum expert, Sekiro Adepoju of Nigeria. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1991 and won the first ever Grammy Award for best album in the world music category. The second Planet Drum album, 2027's Global Drum Project, also won the Grammy Award for best contemporary world music album.

Mickey told me about how the COVID-19 pandemic afforded him and the other drummers the time needed to work on what became their third Planet Drum album, In The Groove. We discussed the various new technologies Mickey employed while recording the new album. He explained to me his sonification process for converting data from sources like the ocean's tides and outer space into rhythmic sounds. I was very excited to get to talk to Mickey about the beam, which is an instrument he developed and uses during drum space segments of Grateful Dead and Dead & Co. shows. I have to admit, it wasn't until later in my Deadhead journey that I fully came to appreciate the free-form, improvisational nature of drums in space. But now it's something I look forward to when watching Dead & Co. livestreams.

The beam is an incredible accomplishment and ingenuity and simplicity. And it was so fun to get to pick Mickey's brain and ask questions about the incredible instrument.

When Mickey and I spoke, it fell on the date of what would have been Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia's 80th birthday. Mickey graciously shared with me a few fond memories of Jerry, which only added to my already memorable experience. Definitely stick around to hear a couple of cool Jerry stories.

All right, without further ado, it's my pleasure to welcome Mickey Hart to the JamBase Podcast, which will lead into with a bit of Planet Drum's King Club off their new album, In The Groove.

I appreciate you taking your time to talk to me today. This is quite a thrill for me, to be honest with you. I've been a fan of your music for almost my entire life, and I saw you first time when I was 13 years old. I'm 41 now.

You've been in my life for a long time, so this is a pretty exciting thing for me to get to talk to you today.

Mickey Hart (4:34)

That's great.

Andy Kahn (4:36)

We're here to talk about Planet Drum's new album, In The Groove, which comes out Friday, August 5th.

It's a fantastic new album I've been listening to quite a bit recently. I'm curious, when did you decide to make a new Planet Drum record? It's been a while, I think since 2007, since the last one?

Mickey Hart (4:56)

Yeah. Well, a number of reasons. One of them was the pandemic, that's one reason. I was trying to do it before that, but the pandemic really brought it on.